My Journey With Mental Illness: My Beginning

 My Journey with Mental Illness: My Beginning

by Brian Warriner

The inception of this blog was intended to serve as a resource for mental health and wellness topics, grounded in research. But it's turning into something personal. It’s about my journey with mental illness. That’s what this blog will be like—a blend of my journey and research topics. From there, we will discover that we can break the stigma.

To my knowledge, my journey began when my family moved to New Jersey. Before that, I was a Navy brat from Philadelphia; I lived in the Carolinas. My dad retired from the Navy, as we were packing and moving, and I had to have emergency surgery. My appendix was about to rupture, which was scary and traumatic. During the surgery, just after it was removed, it was when it had ruptured. During this time, various family matters were unfolding. My grandpop was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, and my grandmom was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. We were still looking for a house and were bouncing from one family member to another. Then, out of nowhere, my grandmom passed away unexpectedly and suddenly. After her passing, my great-uncle and aunt passed away, then my grandpop died. Now I was close to my grandparents, not really with my great-uncle and great-aunt. They were on different sides of the family. It was a lot to deal with.

I entered school, and I didn’t realize that I was dealing with grief-induced depression. Then you add on being bullied for being gay. At the time, I didn’t understand what that meant. The other boys would call me “Fag”, “Faggot”, “Gaywad”, “Homo” and it was brutal. I had a rock thrown at my head by a classmate. I was called names. I was just me, and people who didn’t know me were hating me. All because I was cheering on the teachers at the students vs. teachers’ basketball game.

Over the years, I was judged and bullied for something that others deemed me to be. When I was in the sixth grade, I started thinking about suicide. Again, a word I learned later, a word at the time I didn’t know. The thoughts were like jumping from my bedroom window, cutting myself with a steak knife. I said something to my school counselor. At the time, I didn’t know that by law, she had to report it. She told my parents and called me into a conference. The rest of the day, into the night, I had to be evaluated in the hospital psych ward. Then, subsequently, I had to see a child psychiatrist. After a couple of sessions, I was discharged.

Never given any mental health diagnosis, I went into middle school, where the bullying continued. And I officially came out as gay. I understood when I had my first crush on a boy. He was a junior in high school, and I took one look at him, and I was done. His smile, his thin mustache, and goatee. The way he walked, I was gay. From there, I started to notice other guys. And I realized that I was gay. I told my friends, who were supportive of me. The signs were there because I was trying to hide it. The more I tried to hide, the more obvious it became. When I told my friends I was gay, my hand was on my hip, my lunch pail daggled from my wrist. They looked at me and said, “Fucking duh!”

I will share more of my journey in the next post. So, let’s recap the lessons learned from this post.

1.      It started with grief-induced depression, and it grew into my current mental health disorders.

2.      I spent years upset with my school counselor, but I realized that she saved me.

3.      I survived being bullied for over a decade.

4.      From a young age, I have lived with mental illness that continues to this day.

5.      I came out to my friends in middle school and later to my family.

6.      This journey profoundly shaped me, which I’ll share in the upcoming post.

7.      Suicide is never the answer.

 

Me in the 6th Grade 1998

Me in the 3rd Grade about 1996

My Driving Force: Why I Enter The Mental Healthcare Field

     My name is Brian Warriner. I am a student at Rowan College of South Jersey, working towards my master's degree in clinical mental health counseling. Currently, I am working on my associate's degree in psychology. The reason why I started this blog is because I live with mental illness. I've known that most of my life. But it was a few years ago I finally got help and was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. While I was working with my therapist to get to the root of my issues. I found a deeper version of who I am. But I found my purpose. 

    My background is in Education and Holistics. I worked as a paraprofessional for a few years before I went back to school for massage therapy. For about six years, I worked as a massage therapist. I was also a massage therapy instructor. I am also a Reiki Master Teacher. Everything that I do is also about teaching. I am an educator. Once an educator, always an educator. I am also an internationally published queer author, poet, and writer. There has always been this feeling that I was collecting the pieces of my purpose. And eventually, I would figure it out. I was thirty-seven years old when I decided to go back to school. I was able to apply for everything, including school and financial aid. Once I had everything set, I told everyone I was returning to school. I had this idea and plan in my head. But life had other plans. Two days after I started school, we had a huge family medical emergency. My dad was rushed to the hospital, and we almost lost him. He had sepsis and acute renal failure. After countless hours of dialysis, procedures, and being in a rehab center, he got better. It was difficult and I almost dropped out because I couldn't focus or read what I had to because of the chaos surrounding me. But my family stepped up and let me focus on my schooling. I slide by with just passing grades. But I am doing a lot better. 

    Why I entered the mental healthcare field not only because of my experience with mental illness. Because whenever a school shooting or a mass shooting occurred, you would hear that they had a history of mental illness. My question was, "Why wasn't something done to prevent this? Why are we focusing more on mental healthcare for people?" 

    Then, the silence; let's face it, our government has no real plans to address the mental health crisis we are facing. It makes you wonder if anyone is doing anything to make sure we have properly funded mental health and behavioral health programs in place. Then I would hear the stories of LGBTQIA+ Youth being bullied and completing suicide. I started to observe many things about how we discuss mental health issues. But all I saw was people not getting the services they needed, hearing there is a lack of professionals to handle the number of clients, and then the big words, there is inadequate funding for programs. Or insurance doesn't cover mental health or behavioral health. I knew I had to do something other than just open my big loudmouth. So, I entered the field as a future clinical therapist and as an advocate. It's that advocacy that gave birth to this blog. I want to educate, inform, and provide a path for those living with, suffering with, and dealing with mental illness in any of its forms. 

    In the process, I will cover every possible angle of the field, including my future specialties in grief, addictions, and trauma. The topics covered in this blog have been thought out, researched, and verified. You, the reader, deserve to have the truth and all the truth in understanding where to get help for yourself or a loved one, or if you are dealing with a child being bullied, grief, or addictions, I will have it covered, researched, and verified. In the world of misinformation, we need to make sure we have everything right: the truth, honesty, and pure facts, not clouded by prejudice. That is my promise to you, my readers, that we can Break the Stigma of Mental Illness together.